Yeah, if they fail to take into account that there are differences between the two groups and to try to account for them it will make whatever they learn less applicable. But that's like stats 101. Not that researchers don't occasionally make that mistake, but it's pretty rare (especially compared to how often people bring it up), and usually gets caught pretty quick by researchers during peer review because... stats 101._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

Dutch 14 year old girl sends a tweet to American Airlines wherein she claims to be from al-Qaeda and is going to do something big. American Airlines doesn't take this shit lying down and sent it to the police who arrested her (pretty much frightened her to death).

EDIT: correction, she went to the police herself who questioned her.

She said she made a terrible mistake and was sorry. She was let off with a warning.

Yeah, that's what affirmative action could lead to -- it's like long term stealth apartheid._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

From a global point of view, everyone who isn't part of the Han Chinese ethnic group is a minority, as they are the current global majority ethnicity._________________Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while, I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.

From a global point of view, everyone who isn't part of the Han Chinese ethnic group is a minority, as they are the current global majority ethnicity.

Given the suppression and forced integration of other groups, the Chines Han are also the most problematic and questionable and are more of an "ethnic group", but no one's going to be able to ever get good data to disprove it (remember the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies debacle?). Also, a lot of peoples aren't reported, like how the numbers don't add up for Indonesia for example.

But back on point, my rationale goes like this: Many, if not most, affirmative action plans and legislation are poorly worded. Currently, A bunch of rich old white guys effectively run everything. Once whites become a minority, affirmative action suddenly becomes a tool of oppression._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

except when whites are a majority, NOT having affirmative action is repressive. Minority enrollment in Michigan has dropped by something like 25% - which means a lot of non-whites are not getting the opportunity to get the sort of education that would let them move up in the world. The University of Calfornia system has been doing all sorts of run-arounds to continue bringing in minorites, after (i think) a previous ruling cut their ability to recruit directly.

yeah, they may be poorly worded, but they have a history of producing results. i see it as similar to voting rights legislation - if you don't specifically protect the rights of access to non-powerful people, the powerful people are going to do what they can to end that access._________________aka: neverscared!

But back on point, my rationale goes like this: Many, if not most, affirmative action plans and legislation are poorly worded. Currently, A bunch of rich old white guys effectively run everything. Once whites become a minority, affirmative action suddenly becomes a tool of oppression.

It wasn't Affirmative Action or anything like it which enabled Apartheid and the white South African dominance. Whites in the US will likewise never be able to use Affirmative Action as a crutch to hold onto dominance even if they become a racial minority. AA doesn't work like that. It is not a tool of perpetuating social advantage and can't be used as such. It is a tool of equal employment opportunity and equal access to services and education. They are created and tailored specifically to curtail denial of opportunity based on minority status, and to find where such exclusions are occurring. The only time Affirmative Action programs kick into promotion of specific minorities is on a case-by-case basis where there is a clear history of discrimination against those minorities (e.g., a company that has consistently excluded women from employment or promotion can be ordered to implement goals or even quotas to turn the situation around), but that is not the general case.
So only once whites are actively and systematically discriminated against can AA be invoked, and not in ways that can be used to perpetuate their social advantage and privileges.

But back on point, my rationale goes like this: Many, if not most, affirmative action plans and legislation are poorly worded. Currently, A bunch of rich old white guys effectively run everything. Once whites become a minority, affirmative action suddenly becomes a tool of oppression.

It wasn't Affirmative Action or anything like it which enabled Apartheid and the white South African dominance.

I might be mistaken, but I think Darq may have been talking about the AA that occurred after the end of Apartheid.

WheelsOfConfusion wrote:

The only time Affirmative Action programs kick into promotion of specific minorities is on a case-by-case basis where there is a clear history of discrimination against those minorities (e.g., a company that has consistently excluded women from employment or promotion can be ordered to implement goals or even quotas to turn the situation around), but that is not the general case.

That isn't strictly true. Multiple countries have quotas that must be filled by specific ethnicities. Like South Africa, for example.

The Economist wrote:

One of the accelerators is the award of licences in mining, telecoms and other regulated sectors. If a firm is not sufficiently “empowered”—ie, if too few of its shares and jobs are in black hands—it will not win or retain an operating licence. This is the threat that Dr Ramphele claimed brought Gold Fields to heel. State-backed lenders favour black-owned businesses. State-owned enterprises in transport and energy favour black-owned suppliers.

Various laws add to the pressure. The Employment Equity Act of 1998 obliges biggish firms to try to make their workforces racially “representative”. Those that employ more than 50 people are required to report at least every other year on their progress towards making their staff 75% black, 10% coloured (mixed race), 3% Indian, and so on, at every level from shop floor to boardroom. Failure to show “reasonable” efforts at compliance can result in fines of up to 900,000 rand ($97,000).

Businesses with an annual turnover above 35m rand are also expected to obey a 2003 act which called for “broad-based BEE”. This set targets for black ownership as well as the promotion and training of black workers. Private firms can bolster their empowerment rankings by buying from black-owned suppliers or by helping to set them up.

_________________Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while, I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.